A practical guide to open government data portals
Government open data portals hold enormous amounts of useful data, but they are catalogs assembled from many different agencies, not curated collections, so keyword search alone often fails. Here is what the major portals actually cover, and the search habits that find datasets a plain keyword search misses.
The short answer
For US federal data, start at data.gov (specifically its catalog at catalog.data.gov). For EU-wide and member-state data, use data.europa.eu. For UK-specific data, use data.gov.uk. For international economic and development indicators, use the World Bank's Data Catalog and DataBank. On every one of these, searching by the responsible agency or department name usually beats a generic keyword search.
United States: data.gov
Data.gov is the US federal government's open data hub, managed by the General Services Administration and mandated by the OPEN Government Data Act, which requires federal agencies to publish their data in machine-readable, open formats with metadata included in the Data.gov catalog. Its actual dataset listings live at catalog.data.gov, which brings together datasets from hundreds of federal agency sources plus a number of state, city and non-federal contributors. Because it aggregates so many agencies, the same topic can appear under multiple, non-obvious titles — searching by the likely agency (for example, "NOAA" for weather and ocean data, or "BLS" for labor statistics) is often faster than a topic-only search.
European Union: data.europa.eu
data.europa.eu is the single point of access to open data published by EU institutions, agencies and bodies, and by national and regional portals across European member states and some non-member states. It is a meta-catalog: rather than hosting most datasets itself, it indexes catalogs contributed by national and regional portals, currently drawing from well over a thousand source catalogs. Most of the data is released under open licenses that permit both commercial and non-commercial reuse, provided the source is acknowledged, but licensing is set by the original publisher, so check the specific dataset's terms rather than assuming the portal-wide default.
United Kingdom: data.gov.uk
data.gov.uk is the UK government's open data catalogue, run by the Government Digital Service. It holds tens of thousands of datasets spanning national and local government, and content is published under the Open Government Licence v3.0 by default, unless a specific dataset states otherwise. It is a good first stop for anything UK-specific — census data, transport, spending, health statistics — that would otherwise be scattered across individual department websites.
International and development data: the World Bank
For cross-country economic and development indicators, the World Bank maintains two complementary resources: World Bank Open Data for browsing and visualizing indicators directly, and the World Bank Data Catalog for a fuller listing of datasets, databases and pre-formatted tables, including the World Development Indicators compilation of internationally comparable statistics. If you specifically need microdata from household or enterprise surveys rather than aggregated indicators, the separate Microdata Library is the right place to look instead.
Search habits that actually work
Across all of these portals, a few habits consistently save time. Search by agency or department name when you know roughly which part of government would own the data, since portal search often indexes titles literally rather than by topic synonym. Filter by format early — CSV and JSON are usually more directly usable than a PDF report attached to a dataset entry. And check the "last updated" date on the specific dataset page, not just the portal's overall freshness claim, since individual entries can go stale even on an actively maintained portal.
Portal comparison
| Portal | Coverage | Typical license |
|---|---|---|
| data.gov (catalog.data.gov) | US federal agencies plus some state/local and non-federal sources | Mostly public domain; verify per dataset |
| data.europa.eu | EU institutions plus national/regional portals across Europe | Open licenses, varies by publisher |
| data.gov.uk | UK national and local government | Open Government Licence v3.0 by default |
| World Bank Data Catalog / Open Data | Cross-country economic and development indicators, microdata | Varies; many indicators are openly licensed |
FAQ
What is the difference between data.gov and the EU open data portal?
data.gov is the United States federal catalog, run by the General Services Administration under the OPEN Government Data Act, bringing together datasets from federal agencies and some non-federal sources. data.europa.eu is the equivalent for the European Union: a meta-catalog that aggregates open datasets from EU institutions and from national portals across European member and non-member states, rather than hosting a single country's data directly.
Why can I never find what I am looking for on a government data portal?
Government portals are catalogs of metadata contributed by many different agencies, each using its own naming conventions and update schedules, so a search for an intuitive term often misses a dataset filed under a bureaucratic title. Searching by the responsible agency or department, rather than by topic, frequently works better than a keyword search alone.
Are datasets on these portals free to use commercially?
Most are, but not automatically. US federal government works are generally in the public domain, and data.gov.uk publishes under the Open Government Licence v3.0, which permits commercial use with attribution, but individual datasets can carry different terms, especially non-federal or third-party contributions. Check the specific dataset's license page before assuming it is unrestricted.
Still not finding the right government dataset?
DeepSData can run a real availability search and verify sources for you — searching across government portals for real and confirming provenance and licensing against the requirements you give us, instead of you scrolling through catalog pages one agency at a time.